Beyond Faster And Cheaper: The IKEA Question

Many AI conversations begin with efficiency. How can we automate a process? How can we reduce costs? How can we complete the same work more quickly?

These are reasonable questions. Most organisations are under pressure to improve productivity, and AI appears to offer new ways of doing that. As a result, many discussions about adoption quickly become discussions about automation.

Yet there is a risk that organisations become so focused on doing existing work more efficiently that they overlook a more interesting opportunity.

The IKEA Question

During a recent conversation, Dr Nicola Millard shared an example involving IKEA. Like many organisations, IKEA used technology to reduce the number of routine customer enquiries reaching human advisors. On the surface, it sounds like a familiar AI story: fewer repetitive interactions, faster responses and greater efficiency.

But when IKEA looked more closely at why customers were getting in touch, they discovered something unexpected. Many people weren’t simply looking for information. They wanted advice. They wanted help designing rooms, choosing furniture and imagining what might work in their homes.

The original challenge was reducing demand for customer service. The opportunity turned out to be increasing demand for expertise.

Rather than removing people from the process, IKEA retrained customer service colleagues to provide design support and built a new service around those conversations. The technology solved one problem, but in doing so it revealed another opportunity.

Looking Beyond Efficiency

That is what makes the example so interesting. Many organisations approach AI with a simple objective: automate as much work as possible. The assumption is that if technology can perform a task, success means reducing the amount of human involvement required.

Sometimes that makes perfect sense. But efficiency is not always the most valuable outcome. Removing routine work can create space for people to focus on activities that were previously too time-consuming, too expensive or simply impossible to offer at scale.

In IKEA’s case, the conversation shifted from answering customer queries to providing design advice. The value did not come solely from reducing effort. It came from creating something new.

What Happens Next?

This may be one of the most important questions organisations face as AI adoption continues. Most discussions focus on what work can be removed. Far fewer ask; “what new work becomes possible?”

The challenge is that cost savings are usually easier to identify than new forms of value. Efficiency can often be measured quickly. New services, better customer experiences and different ways of working tend to emerge more gradually, yet they may ultimately prove more significant.

Perhaps the most interesting AI question is not how much work technology can take away. It is what people might do with the space that is left behind.